


cold arms

by wearethefoxes



Series: hometown [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chimeras, Derek Feels, Derek Hale & Isaac Lahey Friendship, Insecure Derek, Magical Stiles Stilinski, POV Derek, Pack Feels, Pining, Sequel, Texting, general melancholy, mythology chimeras though none of the season 5 bullshit, the end is sappy and sweary bc i guess that's just my style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 14:35:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11853603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethefoxes/pseuds/wearethefoxes
Summary: “I think he’s doing okay,” Derek says quietly. His book lies closed in his lap, his fingers white knuckled on the cover. It was a good book, while Derek could focus on it. “He doesn’t talk to me much anymore, but Allison and Scott both say that he’s all right. He’s sleeping more, at least.” Derek hears the wind coming through the leaves of the nemeton, the only tree in the woods that’s not bare, and a moment later Derek feels it on his face. He likes to think it’s in response to him, but he doesn’t know if he can afford to be that optimistic yet.





	cold arms

**Author's Note:**

> lmao remember how i said this would be up a week after the last chapter was posted.....yikes
> 
> what happened is that i had a sequel written but then i realized it sucked (it was too short and didn't actually wrap anything up.) (seriously it was like 1k i'm telling you it s u c k e d). i deleted it all and rewrote but derek is hard to write and also depression and also school so yeah sorry that i'm the worst but here you go.
> 
> title from the song of the same name by mumford and sons. what a #mood
> 
> no warnings that i can think of, hope this is satisfying !!

It’s February-cold outside. The ground is damp from the last of the snow melting away, and the grass is dull and beige from winter. It’s overcast today, sky grey and clouds low, but it doesn’t smell like rain. In the clearing where Derek sits with his back against the tree, it mostly smells like dirt, and like Stiles.

“I think he’s doing okay,” Derek says quietly. His book lies closed in his lap, his fingers white knuckled on the cover. It was a good book, while Derek could focus on it. “He doesn’t talk to me much anymore, but Allison and Scott both say that he’s all right. He’s sleeping more, at least.” Derek hears the wind coming through the leaves of the nemeton, the only tree in the woods that’s not bare, and a moment later Derek feels it on his face. He likes to think it’s in response to him, but he doesn’t know if he can afford to be that optimistic yet.

Derek closes his eyes after a moment. He doesn’t know what he expected. In the two months since Stiles tied himself to the nemeton, Derek has been coming out to the tree a few times a week, sitting beneath it’s branches and occasionally talking, updates on the pack and on Stiles. He’s never gotten an indication that any of it’s working, not from Deaton and not from the tree.

“He’s good at it,” Derek says, eyes still closed, and quieter, like there’s anyone around to hear him. “He’s, I mean, he’s really good at it. I just, I miss him.” The wind is cold. Derek’s butt is going numb and his jeans are damp from the forest floor. Around him, the woods are winter-quiet.

“I miss him.”

There’s no response, because of course there isn’t. Derek sighs, then pushes himself to standing. Laying his palm on the tree, he’s struck, as he always is, by the sense of otherness the tree holds, the sense of being alive. Perhaps he’s imagining it, but it almost seems warm.

“Same time on Thursday?” Derek asks, then realizes he’s talking to a tree and leaves.

 

“Fucking idiots,” Erica mutters, sitting on the table at Deaton’s clinic. There’s tree sap in her hair. In the corner of the room, Scott and Isaac wince, but she doesn’t look at them.

“Are you alright?” Derek asks, trying not to sound amused. He don’t know if he succeeds, from the way she’s scowling at him, but then again she’s been scowling for the last several hours.

“Peachy.” Her lip is curled. Deaton, wiping the scrape on her arm clean, rolls his eyes. Derek suppresses a laugh. “Just, you know, next time you meet a mysterious creature while dicking off in the woods, maybe don’t immediately wolf out and try to attack it.” She whips around to glare at Scott and Isaac, who shrink further into the corner. Her hair, matted with sap and imbedded with pine needles, swings with her.

“I’ve called Boyd, he’s on his way.” Derek says, trying to appease her. The clinic smells like wet dog, feces, antiseptic, Erica’s blood, and Stiles.

Deaton says, mildly, “You’re lucky Stiles was there. Otherwise you might have been in serious trouble.”

Derek clears his throat and looks away. “Do we have any idea what kind of creature it was?” Deaton shakes his head, and the clinic goes quiet.

They were lucky, tonight. Later, Derek will need to formally chastise Scott and Isaac, as Erica said, for their immediate attack response, though he supposes he can’t be too mad about it. He knows they get it from him. For now, he stands with his arms wrapped around his stomach, fists tucked tight in his armpits. In his mind’s eye he sees Stiles, crashing into the clearing all flailing limbs and panicked shouting. Stiles, approaching the creature. The way the ground began to glow faintly, how Derek stumbled at the currents of energy rushing beneath his feet. Stiles, his hand on the creature’s broad and scaly nose, as he apologized and granted it sanctuary in the territory. The way his voice seemed to echo, a whisper of another language behind the words. How he looked at Derek, after, slumped and exhausted. How he nodded, holding Derek’s eyes, and left the clearing. The way the creature spread it’s great wings and flew after him.

A hand on his shoulder startles Derek from his reverie, and he looks to see Boyd stepping into the room, going to Erica and taking her hand. She leans into him, closing her eyes in contentment as Deaton cleans up quietly around her, and Derek looks away.

“Isaac, Scott, you’re free to go. We’ll talk tomorrow. For now, go home and get some rest.” Shoulders slumped and eyes downcast, they shuffle past him. Derek looks to Deaton. “Will her arm be okay?”

Deaton nods slowly. “It looks as though it’s already starting to heal. It’s hard to tell without knowing what kind of creature it was though. She’s safe for now, at least. Erica, you’re welcome to go home.”

Erica nods, looking tired, and Boyd wraps an arm around her waist and helps her from Deaton’s table. Together, they exit the clinic. Derek hesitates, nods his thanks to Deaton, and follows.

 

 **to stiles, 11:17pm** are you alright?

 **to stiles, 11:19pm** what kind of creature was that? it looked like a dragon or something. except. feathers. and bat wings. and smaller than i imagine a dragon.

 **from stiles, 11:25pm** idk. whatever it was tho, it was pregnant.

 **to stiles, 11:27pm** wow.

 **from stiles, 11:29pm** yeah. and like, i don’t think it has a gender. but that’s why it punched isaac through a tree.

 **from stiles, 11:34pm** nemeton says it and it’s scaly dragon-bird babies are welcome to our territory and have our protection. so. i guess it’s sticking around. which is kinda cool.

 **to stiles, 11:39pm** can i call you?

 **from stiles, 11:40pm** yeah.

**[calling stiles stilinski 11:42pm]**

**[end call. call duration 167 minutes]**

 

For a moment after he opens his eyes, Derek can’t figure out what woke him. His room is dark, not even light from the street coming through the windows. He rolls over, reaching for his phone, but all it tells him is that it’s past two in the morning, no notification to have woken him. Derek flops over onto his back, arm over his eyes, breathing through his nose, listening. _There_. Upstairs in the spare bedroom, he can hear a heartbeat, too fast, and breathing, too heavy.

“Isaac,” he says, not bothering to raise his voice, and a moment later, he hears the sheets rustling upstairs and the guest room door opening. Lately, the guest room has become Isaac’s room, but they don’t talk about that.

Isaac comes down the stairs smelling of cold sweat and the lingering nightmare-fear stench. He hesitates at the foot of Derek’s bed, but Derek holds his arm out in open invitation and Isaac crawls in. He’s in a t-shirt and boxers, cuddling closer for as much skin contact as possible. Arm still over his eyes, Derek can’t see him, but he can tell by Isaac’s breathing that he’s not settling back into sleep. Derek slips his arm under Isaac’s t-shirt (skin on skin and pack and comfort). He can feel the swell of Isaac’s ribcage as he breathes.

Isaac says, “What are you gonna do when the pack leaves for college?” and Derek exhales into the hush of darkness. Isaac smells hesitant, anxious to be asking, and Derek tucks him tighter to his bare chest to ease his fear.

As steadily as he can, Derek says, “Probably spend a lot of time patrolling.”

He can feel Isaac’s frown against his ribs. “I’m being serious, Derek.”

“So am I. The pack will go to college, and I’ll stay here, keeping the territory safe.”

Isaac’s quiet for a minute, and then, softly, “Erica and I have been looking at BHCC.”

Derek’s exhale this time is harsher, frustrated, and it’s a testament to how far Isaac has come that he doesn’t flinch away from it. “You don’t have to do that for me. You deserve all of the opportunities available to you, and that’s - that’s not what you’ll get at Beacon Hills Community College. I - I didn’t bite any of you to tie you here, I bit you to - to give you a chance.”

“I know,” Isaac says, voice a whisper, speaking with a gentleness that Derek hasn’t heard before, “but I don’t want to go anywhere else.”

Derek wraps his other arm around Isaac’s shoulders. He keeps his eyes closed. With the darkness, all of his other senses are hyper-alert. He hears Isaac swallow, hears his heartbeat speed up, smells his anxiety and fresh sweat.

Isaac licks his lips before he says, “I’m - grateful, for the chance you gave me, and, and I know Erica is too. But with the bite you also gave us a family. I - I don’t want to lose that again, not for college or for anything.”

Derek knows Isaac is thinking about the same thing Derek is, of the dead mother Isaac doesn’t talk about and the dead brother he talks about only slightly more, the dead father that he doesn’t speak of at all but doesn’t need to to bring him into conversation. Thinking of the entire section of the cemetery dedicated to Derek’s family, the mass grave stone with every name followed by the same date, except one.

Derek swallows and opens his eyes to the darkness of his room. Even with his enhanced vision he can barely see the exposed beams of the ceiling, the skylight blocked off to keep light from waking him. He nods his head into Isaac’s curls. “Okay,” he says, barely a whisper, and wraps his other arm around Isaac, listening as his breathing settles into the easy rhythm of sleep.

 

 **from allison argent, 7:07pm** You should call him

 **from allison argent, 7:09pm** Stiles, I mean. He’s always better after he talks to you.

 **to allison argent, 7:21pm** you know as well as I do why that’s a bad idea

 **to allison argent, 7:25pm** is he not okay now?

 **from allison argent, 7:27pm** Don’t be dense. He hasn’t seen you since the incident with the chimera, and that was over six weeks ago.

 **to allison argent, 7:40pm** I don’t see what that has to do with it

 **from allison argent, 7:42pm** OH MY GOD

 **from allison argent, 7:43pm** DON’T BE DENSE

 **to allison argent, 7:46pm** **. . .**

**[calling stiles stilinski 9:35pm]**

**[end call. call duration 251 minutes]**

 

Sitting on his couch, Lydia releases a frustrated groan and throws her pencil to the coffee table. It skitters off of her notebooks, then rolls off and hits the floor with a dull clatter and keeps rolling. Derek puts a bookmark in and shuts his book.

“I hate this,” Lydia says, glaring at the edge of the coffee table. Her fingers pick restlessly at her nail polish. Derek doesn’t respond, but he goes into the kitchen and comes back with a fresh cup of coffee, no cream two sugars, and pushes it into her hands. She smiles tiredly at him in thanks. He sits down next to her instead of the armchair from before and picks up her notebook, reading through her pages of recorded notes. They’re disorganized, stray thoughts collected off to the side, arrows connecting relevant points, and if Lydia’s pencil throwing wasn’t enough of a demonstration of how frazzled she is, then her note-taking alone would be.

“The chimera?” Derek says eventually, after he’s read through what he can understand. Lydia nods tightly, jaw clenched and still glaring at the coffee table. Derek waits. After a moment, Lydia sighs and pushes her hair out of her face.

“We don’t know anything about it. In Greek mythology, a chimera is part goat, part lion, part serpent, and it breathes fire, and in some accounts it can fly but not in all of them. Homer was the first to write about it, and who knows how accurate it was considering the rest of Homer’s literature, but the other sources I’ve found,” she gestures at the books, stacked haphazardly on the table and piled around her on the couch, “talk about them too. ‘Chimera’ is more of a colloquial term anyway, for a creature made of many different animal parts. This one appears to be part - bat, maybe, because of the wings? - but also it has a bird head, and scales, and it’s body and legs are from some kind of predatory feline.”

She’s growing flushed, now, frustrated, and Derek waits for her to continue. When she doesn’t, Derek hesitantly says, “It hasn’t hurt us,” except Isaac and Scott and Erica, but Derek excuses that as they had attacked first.

Lydia throws up her hands, turning her glare at him now, and he sinks a bit into the couch. “That doesn’t mean it won’t! God, you and Stiles both! He trusts it because the tree does, but the tree is just a goddamn _tree_ and it won’t tell him anything actually _about_ it, or why there are no even _semi_ -recent accounts of it’s kind in supernatural literature, or if someone is after it, or why it chose Beacon Hills of all places to settle and bear children! Instead, he says the tree ‘gave him a feeling about it’ and lets it stay, and because he does and you’re so fucking whipped with him, you do too!”

Her shouts ring in the quiet of the loft. Derek drops his gaze to his hands.

Softly, he says, “It’s not just a tree,” and stands, taking the empty and discarded coffee mugs from throughout the day into the kitchen.

When Derek returns with coffee of his own, Lydia looks slightly chastened, but there’s a defiance in her gaze as she meets his eyes, chin raised. Derek sits next to her and places his hand on her knee, and the belligerence drops from her expression.

The coffee cup is warm in his hands, and Derek stares at it as he gathers his thoughts. Lydia especially has a particular way of making Derek feel slow, stupid, bumbling with his words. The quickness and sharpness of her tongue and her brain was an intimidation that was hard for Derek to see past, initially, and even now he has to fight shame rising in him as he considers his words.

Eventually, Derek says, “It’s not just a tree. I know that it - frustrates you, because it’s not logic, there’s no guide book and hardly any literature, but it’s not just a tree. It’s - sentient, and neutral, but it has a fondness for Stiles that extends to the rest of us because of him. I’m grateful, for the research you’re doing, because you’re right, we don’t know why it chose Beacon Hills or what’s following it or why there seems to be so few of it’s kind, but I trust Stiles, and I trust Stiles’ trust of the tree. It’s not the same as being complacent.” He pauses, and swallows, and feels her looking at him and keeps his gaze on his coffee, his white-knuckled grip on it. “I would never, ever be complacent with the lives of my pack. Not ever again.”

When he looks at her, feeling vulnerable and ashamed of it, he sees nothing but understanding in her, in the softness of her eyes and mouth. She wraps her hands around his, and her hands are cool and dry and comforting. She says, “okay,” and kisses his cheek. A moment later, she says, “wanna help?” and Derek, seeing it for the olive branch she intends it, picks up a book and gets to work.

 

It’s April by the time the chimera gives birth, and the snow is long gone. The grass beneath his feet and the steps to the Hale house are damp from rain, but the afternoon sun slants through the trees easily. With the sun on his face and Isaac leaning against his legs, Derek is warm.

Erica cackles as one of the baby chimeras jumps up to lick Boyd’s face; the chimera is only slightly more smug about it than Erica. Boyd’s expression grows indignant as Scott’s phone clicks with the camera sound across the clearing. Isaac is laughing against his legs. Leaning against each other in the dirt are Lydia and Jackson, separate from the others and talking softly as one of the chimeras inches slowly closer.

Scott and Stiles have been referring to the baby chimeras as “ugly cute;” watching one of them nuzzle into Isaac’s hand, Derek has to agree. In size they’re similar to a mid-sized dog, with beaks and soft downy feathers on their faces and necks. Their wings, spiny and thin, stay tucked up close on their backs, with grey-green scales emerging from underneath to go into the tail. Their legs resemble those of a large predatory cat, more boney than muscle but the same in anatomy. They look, honestly, like a child’s assemblage of favorite animals, but they’re small and largely friendly, more dog than cat-like in behavior, and the others have been enthusiastic in watching them grow.

Across the clearing, Stiles leans against his jeep. His expression is calm - the smile on his face as he watches Scott run, squawking, from three or four of the chimeras, might suggest contentment, but his posture betrays him. His hands are tucked in fists under his crossed arms, but in the hours they’ve been here Derek hasn’t once seen them shaking. Derek drops his eyes to his own hands, throat tight.

Spending the afternoon here, with his pack and Stiles and all of the chimeras,  Derek feels closer than ever to admitting defeat. The nemeton persists in its lack of response, and watching Stiles with the pack now Derek wonders if it’s even necessary. He’s realized that he’s spent more time with his pack since the birth of the chimeras than in the months preceding it, maybe since the Alphas in November. He’s been caught up in research, in talking with Deaton, in spending time in the woods trying desperately to get some kind of response from the tree. He wonders if he’s being a neglectful alpha. He wonders if things are ever going to improve with the nemeton. He wonders if Stiles even wants him to try, if he ever did.

“Hey,” Isaac says, knocking his shoulder into Derek’s knee until Derek looks up. “You okay?”

For a moment, Derek doesn’t know how to answer. Stiles laughs at something Erica has said. The chimera has finally joined Jackson and Lydia, and they’re smiling at it together, holding hands. Scott is lost under a pile of the baby chimeras, all making little chirping sounds as they swarm him, and Boyd is chuckling softly, piling more on top of him. For the first time in years, the Hale house sounds like laughter and smells like family, and Derek is too caught up to enjoy it.

“Yeah,” Derek says finally. He looks at Stiles, who doesn’t notice him. His eyes are burning. He holds his breath, looking at all of them, at this pack that he’s made for himself, this pack that he’s been neglecting in favor of chasing something that’s never been his. Will never be his. He exhales. “I’m okay.” He stands, offering Isaac a hand, and goes off to join the others.

 

“I didn’t realize you were back in town.” Derek means for it to come out cooly, but he’s a little too shaken to manage it. Toeing off his loafers next to the door, Peter snorts. “It was a last minute decision,” he says, and saunters past Derek into the loft. After a moment to regain his composure, Derek follows.

Watching Peter make himself comfortable on Derek’s couch, Derek is reminded, as he always is when he looks at Peter, of how different this Peter is from the one Derek grew up with. Peter was away at college for most of Derek’s childhood, but their family was wealthy enough for him to sweep back home for weekends fairly often. He was young enough to be cool but old enough to be admired, and back then his sharp tongue and intelligence were balanced with a fierce, untarnished love for his family. He never married, but Derek remembers when his first son was born; Derek was a teenager, and he remembers being awestruck by how small his fingers and toes were, by the absolute strength it took for Olivia to bear and birth this tiny, tiny thing.

It took him a while to be able to remember anything other than the smell of smoke, when thinking of his family.

Peter smells like the cemetery and a chemical scent that Derek can’t place. Peter is watching him trying to parse it out with a smirk on his face. Derek scowls when he notices, and Peter laughs. Derek is startled by the lack of maliciousness in the sound, even though it’s at his expense.

Trying to regain control of the situation, Derek says, “Where have you been?”

Easily, Peter answers, “San Diego.” Shock breaks across Derek’s face, and Peter chuckles, adjusts the rings on his fingers without looking at Derek. “I’ve been busy, you know. I doubt you were serious when you told me to get help or get lost, but I took your advice and did both.”

It takes Derek a moment of blank and total shock before he’s able to formulate a response. “You went to San Diego for therapy?” And then, struck with realization, “that’s what the chemical smell is.”

Peter nods. “Mood stabilizers. You should try them sometime.” There’s mischief in his eyes and the curve of his smirk, but the suggestion doesn’t seem disingenuous. Derek is once again shocked into silence.

Peter, of course, takes advantage of it, settling back into the couch to ask, “And what have you been up to, dear nephew? I heard you had a nasty run-in with the Alpha pack.” And even through the sharp edges of his sarcasm, Derek can hear the genuine note of concern in his voice.

Still, Derek is cautious. “I’ve been busy.” He thinks about leaving it at that, but his eyes catch on the books and pages of notes on his coffee table and he hesitates. “Actually, I’ve been working on stuff to do with….the nemeton.” Peter merely hums, leaning forward to sift through Derek’s notes as he talks. “Deaton says that the nemeton doesn’t trust us, the Hales I mean. So I’ve been trying to, to connect with it and get it to accept me, but I don’t think it’s working.”

“Stilinski is the new druid, yes? That’s why you’re trying so hard.” Derek grunts in acknowledgement. “Not to mention the power boost to your pack. What makes you think it’s not working?”

Derek thinks for a moment. “I go to visit it,” Derek says haltingly, “talk to it, try to get it to - acknowledge me, somehow, I don’t know. But there’s been nothing. All I get is - sometimes, I can feel it in the earth, but it’s never in response to _me_. I don’t know what it means, if it means anything.”

Brow furrowed and caught up in glaring at his hands, it takes Derek a moment to notice Peter staring at him in shock. “What?” Derek says, defensive.

“Derek. It took Talia _years_ of rapport - of giving it her blood every year, of deferring to Deaton on things she perhaps shouldn’t have, on bringing the entire pack out to the nemeton - for her to get _any_ sign of life from the nemeton. And you say you’ve been feeling it in the earth for - how long?”

Stunned, Derek says, “December, I think.”

Peter’s exhale is shaky. “Whatever you think you need to do to get the nemeton’s trust back, I would say you’ve already done it.”

 

 **from uncle peter, 11:30am** Had one last goodbye to take care of. I just passed Beacon Hills city limits, I’m officially out of your hair.

 **from uncle peter, 11:34am** And I know I’m always right, but still be careful with the nemeton.

 **from uncle peter, 11:41am** And nephew? Don’t be a stranger. San Diego is less than a day’s drive.

 

 **to Boyd, 11:46am** i’m about to do something potentially stupid

 **to Boyd, 11:46am** if you feel something through the pack bonds that means it worked

 **from Boyd, 12:01pm** Need backup? I have lunch for the next 30 minutes

 **to Boyd, 12:03pm** not that kind of something.

 **from Boyd, 12:03pm** So it’s about Stiles, then?

 **to Boyd, 12:06pm** just let the pack know please. don’t let them freak out

 **from Boyd, 12:11pm** Done.

 **from Boyd, 12:12pm** Be careful, okay? We need you.

 **to Boyd, 12:15pm** thanks.

 **to Boyd, 12:18pm** and i will be

 

It feels different this time, approaching the tree. The sky is clear and the trees are in full April bloom. The grass squelches wetly under Derek’s boots. The only birds singing are far away, far enough that Derek can’t hear their heartbeats when he tries. There is no wind.

“Hi,” Derek says, standing at the base of the tree, stupid and unsure and shaking a bit somewhere inside. He swallows and lays his hand flat against the bark. It’s warm under his palm, and the earth below him gives a thrum. Derek closes his eyes. “I’m sorry,” Derek says, feeling a little stupid for talking to a tree, but the roots of the tree pulse again, gently, almost in encouragement. “Deaton said that you didn’t trust the Hales, and I believed him. I mean, my whole family -” he doesn’t finish. Stops, swallows again. Keeps going. “And then Laura and I, we just _left._ And then Peter - he _killed_ people. He killed _Laura_ . And then I killed him, and I thought, you probably didn’t want all of that tied to you. It made sense. And I knew you, you connected to Stiles, so I thought, all right, I can work with that, I’ll - Stiles, he’s so important to me, and I thought, if I could just _show_ you, then maybe, maybe you would let us - let things work out.” Derek closes his eyes. He rests his forehead against the back of his hand on the tree. He takes a few moments to breathe. “But it turns out it was just more of me being stupid. You’ve trusted me since - since Stiles did, probably, and I thought it was just - normal, what you were showing me, that it was _nothing_. And I’m sorry.”

The nemeton is pulsing constantly now, gentle and consistent like a heartbeat. Derek doesn’t know how he ever thought the tree was anything except alive. A warm bit of wind blows through his hair, on the back of his neck, a gentle _go on_ that he doesn’t know if he’s imagining or not.

He takes another deep breath and kneels in the dirt.

The ground is warm and wet under his knees, soaking his jeans with muddy water in an instant. The tree’s heart beats against his legs, thrumming through his body and overwhelming his senses. Derek pulls the knife from the bag that he’s set nearby.  It’s heavy and cold in his palm, weighty with the same sense of otherness as the tree. Derek remembers Peter telling him to be careful with the nemeton, and wonders if maybe he should have talked to Deaton first.

He remembers telling Lydia, _I trust Stiles, and I trust Stiles’ trust of the tree,_ and slashes the knife across his palm.

 

 **from stiles, 1:01pm** what did you do

 **from stiles, 1:07pm** derek

 **from stiles, 1:10pm** what did you DO

**(6) missed calls from stiles**

 

The cut on Derek’s hand hasn’t healed by the time he catches his breath. He wonders if it will scar, like the wounds from the alphas that Stiles healed with his magic. He circles the fingers of his right hand - unwounded, but covered in dark, damp dirt - around the scars of his left wrist. The nemeton is pulsing still under the earth, warm and alive and seemingly overjoyed by the connection, but for a moment Derek doesn’t feel it, remembering instead the warehouse and the manacles around his wrist, the electricity coursing through him.

The sound of his name being called jolts him from his memories, and he stands on shaky legs, heading towards the sound. Stumbling unsteadily on his feet, Derek steps into the treeline and braces himself against a tree. He leans there, weak and untethered, waiting.

“Derek!” Stiles yells, and steps into Derek’s field of vision. He stills at the sight of Derek, pale and a little bloody.

“Hi,” Derek says, smiling weakly at him. This close, with his blood still dripping into the earth, Derek feels his presence a hundred-fold; his scent and his heartbeat and his magic and the nemeton all swirling up inside Derek’s ribcage at the sight of him, overwhelmingly connected after so many months of feeling so completely and irrevocably separate from him.

Stiles gapes at him for a moment before he collects himself. “You’re a _fucking_ idiot,” Stiles says, coming forward to jam his shoulder under Derek’s arm, taking some of his weight and walking them back in the direction of the road. “You told your fucking _pack_ what you were planning, of course, because you’re just - fucking _Alpha Extraordinaire_ these days, or so I hear, but you’re too - too _wolfy,_ or, or, stubborn, or _something_ to tell someone who actually knows what the _fuck_ is up with that mother _fucking_ tree, like _me,_ or - or Deaton, if you didn’t want me to be involved - instead you had to go off lone wolf style, and - you’re still _bleeding,_ for Christ’s sake. Motherfucking stupid werewolf martyr _idiot._ Fucking - _what?!”_ this last directed at Derek, who began to smile very early on in Stiles monologue and now finds himself unable to stop.

“Nothing,” Derek says softly, still smiling. They’ve slowed their pace, now; their cars are just beyond a thin layer of trees, and with the sun out as it is Derek can see the road through the gaps in the trunks. But they’re hardly moving now, and as some of the indignation slides off Stiles’ face, Derek can only see a desperate kind of hope that Derek feels reflected in his own fluttering heartbeat. “Just - you’re here.”

Stiles swallows. They’re facing each other now, close enough that Derek hears the movement in his throat. “I am.”

His mouth quirks up in a one-sided smile. “You should be in school.”

Stiles makes a desperate noise in the back of his throat. “Derek -” he says, then launches himself at him.

Derek’s arms come around him automatically; he’s still unsteady on his feet so soon after bonding with nemeton, so he takes a couple of stumbling steps backwards before he loses his balance once and for all, landing on his back with an _oof_ and taking all of Stiles’ weight without issue. Stiles buries his face in Derek’s chest, and he’s laughing, or maybe crying, somewhat hysterically. “Shh,” Derek says, smoothing his right hand over Stiles’ head over and over again, revelling in the touch after so long without. Stiles jerks with another laugh-sob, tightening his arms around Derek’s neck.

After Stiles has calmed somewhat, he props his chin on Derek’s chest and looks at him. Derek, with his face tilted up towards the sky, eyes closed and hands in Stiles’ hair, feels his eyes on him and doesn’t look at him. “Derek,” Stiles says.

“Stiles.”

“You’re here.”

He smiles. “I am.” There are birds nearby, close enough now that he can hear their heartbeats under their whistling song. The sun is warm on his face, and Stiles is a solid weight across his front. Their heartbeats are almost in sync; underneath them, the nemeton thrums with life “Stiles,” he says, more serious now.

“Derek.”

And now, at this, Derek hesitates. He opens his eyes, propping himself up on his elbows so he can look properly at Stiles; Stiles, in his red hoodie, his hair in need of a buzz and his eyes practically gold in the sun coming through the trees. He looks tired, but he smells content in a way that Derek doesn’t know if he’s ever smelled, and his eyes and his smile are warm and happy. Derek swallows. “How would you feel about joining my pack?”

For a moment, Stiles just looks at him.

“How would I feel about - _idiot_ ,” he breathes.

And then he grabs Derek’s face in his hands, and kisses him.

 

\- fin -

**Author's Note:**

> it never made sense to me that they portrayed peter as always being the cruel murder uncle...why would him killing laura be such a betrayal if that was the case?? why would derek still trust him and care about him so much if he'd always been psycho ??? just another instance of me blatantly ignoring tw canon lmao see if i care
> 
> (bonus point to anyone that correctly guesses who peter's "last goodbye" is)
> 
> anyway i wrote the last 2k of this today and there is no beta, so if you see any typos etc pls let me know. otherwise i will just be embarrassed when i read through it later.
> 
> [my tumblr](http://allyaisbae.tumblr.com)
> 
> comments and kudos are love! probably won't be any more from this verse but i'm always down to answer questions. thanks to everyone who stuck with me <3


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